Im the best of the best when it comes to move sets for shuckle you want:

Toxic: inflicts damage every turn
Protect: to stall when poisened
Sandstorm: to deal more damag each turn
stonde edeg/rockslide: in case you need to clean up with shuckle

WHatever you do dont teach it power swap! its terrible! it may switch its attack and defense and give huge attack but shuckle is one of the slowest pokemon of them all!
so it will just about always attack last.

How aboot this. Power trick power split guard split and gyro ball. Lead with a pokemon that knows baton pass and use moves that up attack and defense pass those to shuckle then use power split then power trick and depending on the pokemon guard split then just spam gyro ball to sweep team, you're welcome

I would stick Power Split or Power Share whatever to troll some Charizard X or Mewtwo or Gyarados or something like that. Shuckle can do Defense Curl Rollout combo which combined with Power Split means that is one nasty Rollout. Add Rest and Shuckle will destroy everything! OR you could do a Contrary Shell Smash then Power Split rendering sweepers even MORE useless while making Shuckle beyond defensive! OR you could run a Trick Room Shuckle with Power Trick which will turn Shuckle into the ABSOULUTE SWEEPIEST SWEEPER OF ALL TIME!!! AND he has Infestation plus Toxic. Shuckle should be Uber. The peeps at Smogon must've forgoten about Shuckle.

45 Answers

22 votes

You are in luck, my friend! I've trained over two-dozen Shuckle over the past 10 years, and I may say that I am the Shuckle MASTER.

Swagger, swagger, swagger, that's all I can say. Shuckle has a monstrous Base 230 Defense Stat, so don't even be scared of maxing Swagger. The opponent will just beat itself senseless, if you're lucky.

Bide it up, Bro. When paired with a Swagger, the opponent will do a fair amount of damage to you. You'll take about 40 HP damage every Bide, and 80 HP damage isn't too bad for a Shuckle!

Rest. Shuckle has the immense survivability to take hits, even when he's sleeping, so Rest, in this case, is "reliable recovery."

Now you choose either Earthquake, Stone Edge, or Gyro Ball. All three are great attacks, but you can only choose one.

One tip for this cutesy turtle: DO NOT FALL VICTIM TO POWER TRICK. It sounds sweet, but what you really get is the most power physical sweeper in the game, with the lowest HP and Speed in the game. Do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER use Power Trick. Sorry for the caps. I wanted to make sure you understood. :P

This is my advice, and is a collection of my 10 years of training these little guys. I have a Lv. 88 Shuckle sitting on my Gamecube in Pokemon XD, and I took out the Shadow Dragonite with it by accident, back when it was only Lv. 59. Yeah. Shuckle's that awesome. :D

Yeah, Swagger is good, I've seen in done in the metagame in Standard Play. Because it causes confusion and also was used with Power Trick for that Shuckle to explode with a lot of Damage with Bug Bite and Stone Edge. Instant KO, my friend.

you are assuming that you are not in a double battle. I pair one of my dozen or so shuckles up with a trick room partner for double battles. Turn 1: my speed tricker uses trick room, shuckle uses power trick. because shuckle is slowest pokemon in game (with like 5 base, 0 IVs in speed and 0 Evs, my shuckle has single digit speed), shuckle will go last with power trick, thus ensuring that shuckle is not killed. Then shuckle can spam the rock slide/sludge wave/earthquake until other team dies. If you feel threatened by priority moves, make a substitute before you do power trick. Trick room will last for 5 turns. Most teams die in 3. (well most die in one cause they ragequit, but hell, I'm not counting the morons.) So: moves.
1: Power trick
2: Substitute
3: Earthquake/Rock slide/Sludge wave (Earthquake because...Earthquake, Rock slide = instakill STAB, sludge wave because...I like poisons
4: either another wave move or my personal favorite...poison sting. why? BECAUSE I KILLED YOUR LEVEL 100 RAYQUAZA WITH A SHUCKLE USING POISON STING! THAT'S WHY! AND IF SPLASH DID ANY DAMAGE, I'D USE THAT INSTEAD!
needless to say, I only actually use poison sting if you only have 1 or 2 pokemon left, and if I feel like rubbing your face in it.
Unlike a lot of sweeping/trick room strategies, this one only requires one turn of buildup, and unless they can outspeed and 1 hit your trick room guy...its over. Game over, man. Game over. Shuckle should be in the ubers, but until they fix it, I am one of only a few, apparently, who has seen shuckle's sheer potential for a competitive team. I also use two wall shuckles in a real battle, both with 31 IVs in def and spec def. So... yeah...

your moveset is rather limited. Even in single battles, Shuckle can be used very effectively with power trick. I've swept entire teams with my power trick shuckles. It takes 3 turns to set it up, but its quite easy. You simply lead with a speedy trick room, laugh as he gets one or two hit koed, then bring in the shuckle. By the time he realizes that *oh shiz* he's going to get swept, three or more of his team is gone.

Not bad, but for me, I loathe Taunt users, so I have attacking set ups. Instead of Rest and Stealth Rock/Power Split, I have Smack Down and Sand Tomb, so that it can deal additional damage, prevents switch-ins, and brings the foes down, so they'll be vulnerable to Ground-type moves!

Contrary works great on this set. Trick Room support is HIGHLY recommended for this set.
Shell Smash raises defenses and lowers Speed, thanks to Contrary.
Power Swap, after 6 Shell Smashes, will give you an insane 2456 Atk stat.
Gyro Ball will have INSANE power with the heightened Attack stat, and lowered Speed.
Rock Slide and Stone Edge are STAB. Rock Slide is for more Accuracy, Stone Edge is for more power.

one problem that i see here, in double battle you wont be able to attack both enemies with gyro ball in the same turn so you are still going to take hits. after all those reversed shell smashes and then the power trick you are going to have just about the worst defence imaginable which, along with shuckles low health, means the enemy you dont KO will just one shot you easily. And in single battles trick room will not last long enough for you to set up shell smash + power trick and still have time to sweep afterwards. Perhaps earthquake instead of gyro ball would make this more effective as you could take out both opponents at the same time. You would need a flying or levitating trick roomer to accompany you though for obvious reasons

Stall Shuckle

This is another staller set for Shucky here (since its's good at it!). You have Toxic there for obvious reasons to have something to stall for, along with Protect to waste more time. Substitute can also provide for extra support along with Protect, so that it is harder to break through Shuckle's massive defense stats (and its also great because Shuckle has low HP). Struggle Bug will provide the extra Sp. Defense support you can get by spam decreasing your opponents Sp Atk until they switch, where you can potentially Toxic them. The Calm nature will help put up the Special Defense side of the wall, and so there you have it!

Right, first move you use Power Swap and as your sure to move last you still have your defences and bulk. Next use protect while your other Pokemon uses trick room. Then you just keep using Rock Slide for as long as you can and just sweep from there.

Use this little guy in a sandstorm as special wall.
After 6 shell smashes and in the sand he reaches a special defense of 3354.
Toxic is for stalling and rest for recovery
Knock off for knock down your oppononts items like type resisting berries and life orbs.

okay so here is my sand team staler with sandstorm, the evs, all the shell smashes, and the nature his def is 1,288, sdef is 1,287, atk is 3, satk is 3, and speed is 1. so first you want to use toxic. then you shell smash 6 times if your opponent faints before then or switches out you toxic the new one until all of the the shell smashes are up. you can ether have power split to cripple sweepers and raise gyro ball or rest to heal (I suggest rest). and from there gyro ball with 1 speed.

Shuckle@Chesto Berry/Leftovers

with all the EVs in HP, Def and Sp.D, you are almost invincible. shell smash boosts defense and S defense with contrary, and substitute for set-up. Rest is for healing and on of the last moves to slowly kill of threats.

Just a normal lead Shuckle, doing its job well setting up rocks AND sticky web, poisoning those other leads too. Knock Off is there to get rid of your opponents item, just to mess with them even more, but this next set...

You kind if have to rely on luck for this one. Once you trap your opponent with Infestation(hopefully they are the opposite gender as you), use Attract, then Toxic, then spam Shell Smash to annoy the heck out of your opponent.

Use Shell Smash to boost your defense to insane levels. After that, use Sandstorm to get a SpD boost. Then use Gastro Acid if you really need to, but if you don't, use Bide to stack up large amount of damage, then hit back hard to your opponent

Power split/Rest- heals & with the defences he has, he won't take in damage too much/power split is a move for those people who enjoy eliminating sweepers & making shuckles more powerful, but not nessicary when using double team
Double team- this makes him almost intangible if used repetedly
Toxic- poisons opponent & takes out alot of hp if not healed or switched out quickly
Rockslide- makes opponent flinch every so often + deals lots of damage & has STAB

Item- preferably either lum/chesto(i think) berry (heals sleep on first rest used) bright powder(lowers accuracy making shuckle even more intangible) leftovers (if you either don't use rest, or just to have a long lasting shuckle)

EVs - 252 in both defences + 4 in hp= long lasting shuckle

Nature- impish

Strategy- use toxic on opponents then double team for about 5 turns, using rest when nessisary. Then when you have used double team as much as you think nessisary, use rockslide once or twice by the time you are done with double teaming, your opponent will almost be KOed

Ability- sturdy, in gen V it gets better but is still good to have in gen 3-4

Move set-
- toxic- shuckle isn't shackle without toxic. Anyone who knows a shuckle knows what I mean
- sandstorm/power split- cripples opponents & raises that attack which is about 30 at max on lv 100. Or raises sp defence by a whiling 50% on shuckle especially & causes some damage to enemies :E
- mud slap/double team- typical shuckle moves. I don't care if it is banned, it would be no fun without them, plus I need to teach my friend about shuckles & their awesomeness
- rest- last part in a great shuckle & the best recovery this guy can get move wise

This is the best I could come up with. Rock Polish gets you to an even lower speed rate, powers Gyro `
ball to epic power. Sand Tomb is when you have a different idea in Using this. Power Trick is pretty obvious.

Shuckle can die very easily. Rock/water attacks just level his small hp. Even with max defensive investments. If you use rest without any defensive set up you are just letting them switch kill your little shuckle. even with lum berry you will be resting again. I promise you against a smart opponent you would be rest stuck very fast praying your shuckle makes it. Not to mention with no form of attack you are simply taunt bait giving a next turn switch in coming into an attack.

Staller Shuckle II

I am not sure how this set can/will work out, but just a thought I had! Toxic for the stall, and Protect for a free turn of lefties and toxic damage. Encore is there to get your foe stuck on something hopefully making them switch out, or give you free turns to set up with Accupuncture. The point of Accupuncture is to try and get Sp. Defense or Defense boosts so that Shuckle will just be a complete monster in defenses, probably being able to take ANY hit extremely well (if you are lucky enough). (Withdraw is a more reliable option but only raises Defense; your choice!). I've also added Dig as another fairly nice option instead of Encore so that you will be able to get one extra turn of Toxic stall / lefties heal. May or may not work!

I'm only adding an option. Teach him Withdraw instead of Acupressure for more reliable Defense raising. You just end raising your Sp Atk 6 stages or something before touching your Defenses. Again, just an option.

True, and maybe a better option, but Accupuncture also has the chance to raise Sp. Defense too; but I've hardly used that move so I don't know how reliable it is. Withdraw might be a better option, thanks!

I have an idea, though I can't be sure if it's a good one or not :p
Offensive Shuckle:
Sturdy (may come in handy while using Power Trick)
Relaxed Nature (Least speed for use of Gyro ball, most defense)
Quick Claw (For a lucky priority attack)
Moveset:
-Substitute
-Power Trick
-Rest/Toxic
-Earthquake/Gyroball
The point of this Shuckle is to completely offset the negative aspects of Power Trick. Using Substitute, Shuckle can create a stand in, that will be just as defensively powerful as the real thing. Next, it can use Power Trick, and make its attack crazy strong. Lastly, it can either attack with Earthquake, which is a powerful, reliable move that also is super effective against two out of three of Shuckle's weaknesses (rock, steel). Or, it can use Gyro Ball, which will do enormous damage thanks to its low speed (and think, it may even go first while using it thanks to quick claw). And the beauty of it, is that it can revert back to defense mode, and either mess with its next opponent's status with Toxic, or heal itself completely with Rest and start the attack all over again. This method could be used against an unsuspecting Steel or Rock type and what your opponent believes will be a routine Shuckle smash, could turn into a massacre. And once those obstacles are gone, Shuckle could even become a sweeper, mopping up the rest of the opponent's team.
That's my understanding anyways, feel free to point out any mistakes/problems.

I would baton pass a sub to shuckle instead of having him do it. Drifblim can make a strong healthy sub and baton pass to him with stockpiles and will o wisp support. Shuckles sub wouldn't be worth much due to his low low low health.